What He Became
by Electricboa
Summary: They hadn't laid eyes on one another for seventeen years. Seventeen years since she walked away—since she left the Jedi behind. She thought he was dead, but like a specter from the past the shadow brought her world crashing down with seven words. "It has been a long time, Apprentice."


"Running away again, Lady Tano?" Maul mocked from the base of the steps, his saberstaff clutched loosely behind his back. He was so focused on her that he'd all but forgotten about Kanan.

"If you want to finish our fight," Ahsoka smiled, "you'll have to deal with him first."

The Zabrak frowned slightly and furrowed his eyes as he turned. Kanan, wearing an ancient Sentinel mask, tilted his head up towards her. "Go get Ezra."

This was his fight, she realized. Nothing she could do would matter here and the temple was already trembling with power. A quick nod and she sprinted up the steps. As it was, the journey to the top was longer than she'd preferred. Nearly there, she saw the TIE fighter glide quietly to her destination and her heart sank. _He_ was here—the Sith Lord. She caught Ezra's defiant words over the howling wind.

"I don't fear you," he cried.

"The you will die braver than most," the bass response was cold and harsh. The sound of clashing lightsabers rang out and Ahsoka realized she didn't have the time to take the easy route. Forcing the exhaustion from her throbbing limbs, she pushed off from the last ledge and vaulted to the summit of the pyramid. Landing in a hard crouch, she looked up to see the black-clad Sith towering over Ezra, sans his lightsaber.

"Perhaps I was wrong," Vader said idly and raised his bloodshine blade into the air.

"It wouldn't be the first time," Ahsoka called as loudly as she could, bringing herself to her feet.

The shadow visibly paused, as if deciding whether or not to let the blade fall and fulfill its lethal purpose. Instead, Vader turned towards her with deliberate slowness. The soft lights of his respirator system blinked lazily as the audible breathing hissed over the crack of thunder. Coming to a stop, his caped curled around him like liquid darkness. The bass rumble of his voice carried easily over the wind as the helmet angled slightly downward. "It has been a long time, Apprentice."

She could feel the shock and confusion from Ezra, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Her suspicion—her fear—was confirmed in such a succinct way. He knew. _He knew_. And now, she did too.

"My master is dead," she said firmly.

Vader inclined his head. "Yes, dead for more than a decade." He let the wheeze of his breathing punctuate his pause. "A fate you and your friends will soon share with him."

Ahsoka started to regulate her breathing. She would need everything she had. "I won't let you hurt them."

"Impulsive and reckless as always," he mocked. "Some things never change."

"Everything has changed!" She shouted over the rolling thunder.

Vader openly appraised her as he thumbed his blade off. "We need not be adversaries," he said at last, "the Emperor will show you mercy, so long as you tell me where the remaining Jedi can be found."

"There are no Jedi," she snapped, "you and your _Inquisitors_ have seen to that."

Her old master just stood there as a gust of wind whipped his cloak back, looking for all the galaxy a living nightmare. "Perhaps this child," Vader mused, turning back to Ezra, "will confess what you will not."

"You'll have to kill me before I let you do that."

Looking over his shoulder, Vader's voice sounded like a rumble of thunder. "Do you think protecting this boy will make up for your failures?" Even through the plasteel helmet, she knew when his eyes found hers. " _Can_ you save him, Apprentice?"

"You won't hurt him," she repeated with a growl, raising her lightsabers into a guard position.

Vader casually lifted his hand and Ezra's eyes went wide. He was easily lifted in the air and started to gasp for breath. Ahsoka froze; he was going to force her to attack and he hadn't even reignited his own blade. Anakin always was good at backing opponents into corners. That was fine, she wasn't going to shy away from this fight. Kicking her feet off the smooth stone flooring, Ahsoka lunged like a sandviper.

The invisible grip vanished as Ezra collapsed to the floor choking for air. Ahsoka was feet away from the Sith when he brought his reactivated lightsaber up and batted away her attack. The force behind it was unbelievable. It felt like her blade had been batted aside by a turbolaser blast. Vader hadn't even moved his feet. He just stood there, stationary, and summoned that momentum from nothing. His breathing hadn't even changed.

The impact threw her to the side, landing in a kneeling crouch near the ledge. Vader looked briefly at her before starting to stalk towards Ezra, who had started to crawl away. The slow and steady _hiss_ of his breathing was a death knell. Vader was going to kill him because of her; all of it—because of her.

Leaping at his cloaked back, she could at least force him to stop and deal with her. A roundhouse intercepted her and the shock of the impact rattled through her body. Her arms trembled with the effort to hold tightly onto her blades. She was tired and exhausted from the climb and he knew it.

 _Accept your limitations and make the most of them._

Anakin's words echoed in her mind. She couldn't beat Vader, but she could slow him down. She could use everything she had to make sure Ezra and Kanan had a chance to stop the temple from whatever it was doing.

Hurling one of her blades at Vader's feet, he leaped at the last second. The energy sizzled as it just grazed the edge of his cape and gouged a shallow cut into the summit floor. He rolled in the air, coming down a few feet away putting Ezra between them. Ahsoka's eyes widened as Vader's gloved hand lashed out and grabbed his neck. Wrenching the boy into the air, Vader brought his face eye-level with the mask's obsidian orbs.

"Are you afraid, Padawan?" He asked as he held Ezra out like a doll. Ahsoka hesitated as Vader shifted to address her. "Jedi are supposed to be brave, aren't they, Apprentice?"

The Sith didn't wait for an answer that wouldn't be coming anyway. He hefted Ezra higher and started to squeeze. "I told you on Lothal that you would never become a Jedi. A fitting end for an unfit pupil."

She needed to stop this, but Ahsoka couldn't figure a way of freeing Ezra without Vader cutting him down before she could do it. She needed time. "My master could never be as vile as you," she shouted. "How could you?"

"How could I? How could I not?" Vader mused in a cold philosophical air—as frigid as empty space, but at least stopped choking Ezra.

Ahsoka shook her head. "You were a Jedi—a hero!"

Vader made a sickening static sound that took her a second to realize was a derisive laugh. "'The Hero Without Fear,' yes. But that was a lie; a fiction. No more than a cheap propaganda piece for a floundering Republic that cared more for publicity than victory."

Ezra, with his moment of reprieve and with Vader's attention firmly on Ahsoka, tried to reach for his pocket without calling attention to himself.

"Anakin Skywalker was always afraid. He was afraid to let down those he cared about. He was afraid of being abandoned like all those times before." Vader raised his blade and pointed it at her like an accusing finger. "And you left him. You left him alone and afraid in the dark. That's how Anakin Skywalker died—betrayed by the person— _the people_ —he should have been able to count on."

"I had to leave," she said defensively. "I couldn't stay."

Vader's entire body vibrated with rage as he took a threatening step towards her, Ezra dangling dead weight at his side. "We both know that is a lie. You ran because you were just like Anakin— _frightened_."

Before Ahsoka could respond, Ezra started to squirm, bringing Vader's attention firmly back to him. "And now you will see what your fear will cost you—what it will always cost those you care about."

As he brought the boy up again, Ezra reached out and jabbed his hand towards Vader's helmet. With his eyes scrunched closed, his fist exploded with light. For one brief second, the entire world was filled with white. Vader let out an inhuman roar and threw Ezra into one of the far columns in his rage. Ahsoka's eyes adjusted faster than humans could, and certainly faster than whatever photoreceptors Vader's helmet had. She spared a glance to Ezra. He was alive, though badly burned from the way his hand was smoking from the flash grenade he'd detonated.

For the first time, Vader's breathing was irregular. The _hiss_ of his exhale was sharp and fast, but he still raised his blade to meet hers. Knowing where it would be even without sight. Ahsoka remembered the hours Anakin trained blindfolded. It might slow him down, but it wouldn't stop him.

"So like _her_ —brave and foolish. Ready to challenge the world without thought to yourself." Vader's hand jabbed into her solar plexus and Ahsoka stopped breathing. Numbness and panic spread though her as she couldn't get her lungs to work. "They will all die— _and it will be your fault._ "

Ahsoka brought her lightsaber down on Vader's armored shoulder with the help of gravity. Sparks burst into the air and the Sith ducked to the side to prevent any more damage. He brought himself around in a smooth motion and aimed a center-mass kick at her stomach, sending her sailing across the room. She should have expected something like that. Pain and advantage combined in the perfect economy attack. But she wasn't here to win, just to fight. She could feel Kanan coming up the side of the temple. Her muscle spasm subsided and she started to gulp for air. Her master wasn't in much better condition. The flash grenade had damaged the control box on his chest and he was flipping the override switches on it. It was as good an opportunity as she was going to get. Wrapping Vader in a cocoon of Force energy, she hurled him bodily out the other side of the temple summit.

Kanan and Ezra would need all the time she could buy them to get to the holocron. As it was, pulses of blue energy were buffeting out from the central pillar. Each wave sent tingles of energy rippling through her muscles.

Launching herself into a spinning leap, she corkscrewed though the air into Vader's waiting block. He caught both her blades with his own angled at a sharp downward position. With a synthesized growl, he shoved her off to the side along the walkway that lined the outside of the temple summit.

"I can feel your anger," Vader said, as he slammed his blade into her scissor-like defense, "your hatred." His boot snapped out and swept her off her feet. "Is this what has become of my once-proud apprentice?"

Rolling back to get momentum, Ahsoka jumped to her feet in a single, fluid motion. "You betrayed _everything_ we stood for," she shot back, "I will avenge what you've done to the memory of Anakin Skywalker!"

Vader's uppercut knocked her lightsabers apart and his massive hand latched itself around her neck. "Revenge is not the Jedi way," he said with the same calmness that he'd had earlier. Without any ceremony or warning, he smashed her against one of the corner columns outside the pyramid. Her head hit the stone wall with a _crack_ and her world started to spin.

She could feel the blood dripping from her nose as Vader hit her against the wall again. Her vision was flickering and she knew she had to have a concussion. It took everything she had to focus on the gleaming black helmet. Resolve hardening her gaze, she waited for Vader to pull her closer another time and put all her strength behind a punch aimed at his chest.

He dropped her and pulled away at an inhuman speed, but it didn't completely save him. Smoke curled up around the flared angles of his helmet. He was leaning over, as if to protect his center as the mechanized breathing was struggling to regain its regularity.

Ahsoka tried to get to her feet, but her leg gave way beneath her. She hit the ground hard and coughed up blood. _Get up_ , she yelled at herself, _get up!_

"Where are your friends now, when you need them most?" Vader asked, his voice jumping in octaves as he stopped shaking. "Abandoned you, just like you did to me. Alone and afraid in the dark."

As he said the last word, Vader surged forward. She brought her sabers in a parallel block and winced. Her fingers were trembling from fatigue. Vader was as much leaning on her as he was trying to push her down. His free hand shot out and Ahsoka was blasted off the summit edge, Vader falling in a heap without her to hold him up.

Falling down the slope of the ziggurat, Ahsoka jammed her blades into the wall to slow her descent. She hit one of the plateaus at an angle and her ankle screamed in agony. _No, no, no, no_ , she thought. Vader was still up there with Ezra and Kanan. She needed to get back up there. She needed to save them. Should couldn't lose anyone else. Not anymore. Not today.

She was burning herself out, but she couldn't stop. She couldn't rest. Not yet, at least. There was low rumble and what sounded like an explosion. Ahsoka looked up in time to see the raised corners of the pyramid summit beginning to fall. _They must have gotten the holocron_ , she realized.

Getting back to the top took precious minutes none of them had. Vader was already there, his arm reaching out for the holocron Ezra was holding on to for dear life. The world was falling apart around them and Vader was an unstoppable machine. Ahsoka just started running. She didn't even try to hold back enough energy to stop. The momentum kept her legs moving, bounding leaps that were a product of pure desperation.

Vader realized she was coming and spun—half a second too slow. She hit him with the force of a living battering ram. Bringing her blades up as she leaped at him, she slashed at his helmet with all she had. The impact sent her flying over him, and scrapping along the ground until friction brought her to a full stop. Vader's scream sent ice through her veins.

"Ahsoka," Ezra called from where he was holding a blind Kanan up, "come on, hurry"

 _Don't stop_ , she could only manage to think. Speech a step too far for her just now. _Don't wait for me. Get out of here!_

She pulled in, bringing her knees up to a tentative kneel. All she needed was to go a little further.

" _Ahsoka_."

The world stilled. The whip of the wind lost all sound and time stopped. Ahsoka felt her chest tighten. That voice—his voice. She pushed herself up and turned.

Vader was also kneeling, but on a single knee. His mask was turned to the side, but she could see the glow of melted plasteel around the edge. The wheeze-whistle of breathing sounded like that of a dying animal. He looked at her and she could see the gouge she'd cut along his helmet. Inside, she could see the glow of a single citrine iris. "Ahsoka," he repeated, this time with more surety.

Her breath caught. "Anakin . . ."

They both unsteadily got to their feet. The sides of the pyramid were nearly down. She knew Ezra had gotten Kanan to the ship. She also knew that she wouldn't be going with them. Not now. "I won't leave you," she declared, her voice thick with emotion. "Not—not this time."

Vader—Anakin looked at her with a brief moment of confusion. It passed as his visible eye hardened again. The tension that kept his body like a coiled spring clicked back into place. It wasn't about the holocron anymore. He didn't even glance up at Kanan and Ezra. Instead, he flicked his lightsaber on. "Then you will die."

The Sith started to limp towards her as sparks spat from his chest. She heard Ezra call her name and she used the Force to push him back into the ship. This was her destiny, not his. She wouldn't let anyone die for her. With a flash of crimson, Vader's blade came down on her back, which she caught with her cross guard block. Ezra cried out for her, but the sides to the summit were mere feet from the ground. It was too late, and they had to know it.

Their movements were sluggish. Neither were at their best anymore, and it would be a moot point soon enough. The central column of power looked like it was nearly at critical mass. A series of concussion booms blew inwards and shot debris at them like confetti. The energy swirl at the center was as blinding as the flash grenade had been. Their lightsabers were locked together when the pyramid around them exploded.

Her eyes sprang open as she shot upright. _Alive_ , she realized, _but not for long_. There was an angular piece of stonework buried in her chest. The gurgle she heard when she took a breath sounded like one lung was already collapsed. Togruta could live for hours on a single functioning lung, but that didn't matter much when she wasn't going anywhere.

She heard a crash to her right and turned to see Vader on the ground with his shoulder propped up against a fallen chunk of the temple. Dust settled on them both. The natural glow of the luminescent hieroglyphs gave her just enough light to make out the angular features of his mask. His breathing echoed like a thousand cries in the canorous room.

"Does this lighten your heart?" He asked in a rasp. "They will never escape. My Star Destroyer will capture them. You've bought them—at best—minutes."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry for leaving."

Vader pushed himself to his feet with a low guttural noise. " _Sorry isn't enough_ ," he roared, stumbling over to her.

Ahsoka managed to pull herself up to a sitting position, her lightsabers miraculously still clutched in a death-grip. Even at the end, her instincts still stayed with her. She looked up to see her master towering over her like a reaper. She couldn't quite bring herself to look into his eyes. "I'm sorry for what happened to you."

"I will never stop," he growled. "Every last one of them—those people you call _friends_ —I will see every one of them dead, _your name on their dying breath_."

 _You abandoned me—you failed me! Do you know . . . what I've become?_

The words of her vision resonated within her. Yes, she knew. Anakin was truly dead. She failed him, just like Vader said. She also knew what she had to do. The shuttle hadn't made its escape, yet. Kanan and Ezra wouldn't abandon her, even when they knew they had to. They wouldn't leave until they knew she was already gone. She wouldn't fail them.

 _Accept your limitations and make the most of them._

Her blue eyes hardened and she looked up into the thing that used Anakin like a puppet—that had killed her master. Resolve calmed her heartbeat and relaxed the tension in her muscles. _Tranquility of spirit and oneness with the Force_ , she thought, _better late than never_. "Goodbye, Master."

In a swift movement, she brought her lightsabers together emitter to emitter. Without hesitation, she flicked them on simultaneously. Vader had a fraction of a second to start rearing back, but he couldn't move fast enough. The plasma blades lanced into each other and overloaded the crystals. Critical mass was almost instantaneous. Ahsoka's world was engulfed in a blindingly white light and then nothingness.

* * *

The soft hiss of his leaking mask filled the silence of the room. It ebbed and flowed with his breath. The sting of the ionized air prickled his skin and burned his eyes, but he forced himself to look at her corpse. Burned and shredded though the scene was, the steady blink of his locator beacon bathed her in crimson light every few seconds. The cauterized blood looked black in the dimly lit room.

His ship had been stolen—by whom Vader didn't know. All that mattered was he had been trapped on this wretched planet until _Devastator_ could send a rescue party. He could hear the familiar footfalls of Stormtrooper boots. He could feel the knots of life that represented each one of them coming closer. One brighter, more forceful than the others, paused behind him. He didn't need to turn to know the man inclined his head in submission.

"My lord," the Eleventh Brother intoned.

"The starship?" Vader asked. He already knew they were gone. They fled as soon as his apprentice killed herself in a last ditch effort to end him.

"They managed a lightspeed jump seconds before tractor beam lock," the Inquisitor said contritely.

Vader turned away from his deceased apprentice and stalked over to his still-flashing locator beacon. A counter-clockwise twist and it stopped broadcasting. "They will not escape for long."

The Inquisitor, suitably given permission to stand down, picked his way through the bones of the temple. He nudged the dead Togruta with the tip of his boot. "It's a shame we couldn't interrogate—ack!"

He feebly grabbed at his neck as he was lifted bodily from the ground. The Eleventh Brother's eyes widened in surprise. " _My—my lord?_ "

Vader had whirled around to the Inquisitor. For the first time the disciple saw just how much damage Vader had sustained. His mask was splintered and broken—cracks lined the entire ghastly visage. The single visible eye, yellow with anger, bore into him. "Did I _say_ you could touch her?"

The Eleventh Brother shook his whole body from side to side, unable to move only his head. " _No—no, Lord Vader_ ," he whispered fervently.

The Sith Lord threw him unceremoniously to the ground in a heap. "You would do well to remember that, Inquisitor."

Moving to the Stormtrooper Commander standing guard by the entrance, Vader gestured to the body. "Bring a gurney and transport her to the _Devastator_. No one touches her."

Commander Bow was already calling for it by the time Vader moved back to the Inquisitor. "Track the Rebels down and put an end to their interference," he rumbled, "or it will be _your_ end instead."

The Eleventh Brother nodded judiciously as the Sith Lord swept out of the ruins with a noticeable limp.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** If I wasn't much of a fan of the Clone Wars TV series, Rebels is by and far worse. At least some of the Clone Wars was interesting. Outside of the Vader episodes? Rebels is just utterly boring. They couldn't even come up with interesting new characters. Instead, we just got cheap knock-offs of the ANH team. We've got Jedi Knight Fred Jones, of Scooby-Doo fame (Kanan), Padawan Aladdin-With-Blue-Hair (Ezra), Discount Chewbacca (Zeb), Gender/Species-Bending Han Solo (Hera), Obligatory-Boba-Fett-Reference (Sabine), and Dollar Store R2-D2 (Chopper). Really? Is this what we've come to? You've made me nostalgic for Clone Wars screwing with EU canon, show—shame on you!

But I was interested in the confrontation between Ahsoka and Vader, so I wrote an expanded version of it. In this one, she does explicitly dies, so that shot of her at the end of the episode would be her spirit guarding the temple from anyone else that wanted to claim the power.


End file.
